Women’s Time for Job, Family Explored in ‘Shoot the Clock’

Single or married, with kids or not, working outside the home or strictly home-based, women across the nation say that finding time--for family, job and themselves--is their biggest challenge.

If you agree, be prepared to identify with Sunday’s Lifetime documentary, “Shoot the Clock: Fitting Your Life Into Your Life.�

Just don’t expect to find any easy answers.

Narrated by former “ER� star Sherry Stringfield and produced by Linda Ellerbee, this hourlong ode to the obvious is still worth watching, particularly for any woman who thinks she’s alone in loading up on guilt as she tries to juggle professional and personal demands.

Here, six women holding various positions at a Pennsylvania department store are profiled, from the whirlwind beginning of their busy day to the end.

One upscale merchandising manager clearly thrives on the challenge, her positive attitude fortified by a helpful husband and the resources for a full-time baby-sitter. Another has regrets at her failed family life but clearly finds fulfillment in her work.

A former employee feels fortunate that she was able to quit in order to be home for her five children. The human resource manager works at the store because it gives her more time for her family than a previous job.

Yes, it is about choices. Although many women can’t or have no desire to choose not to work outside the home, the time crunch can perhaps be addressed by some rethinking and restructuring.

Yet if there is an answer overall, it may be in what’s implicit here--workplace flexibility. The store where these six women work seems to have at least some awareness of the problem. The one single, childless woman profiled here, a manager, believes that family should come first, an attitude she says her employees respond to with loyalty and hard work.

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* “Shoot the Clock: Fitting Your Life Into Your Life� can be seen at 10 p.m. Sunday on Lifetime cable.